Some Jewish Witnesses For Christ
Jerusalem. The daily services held in the temporary chapel on Mount Zion
were a source of much delight to him, and also the large congregations.
The Bishop thus summed up his episcopal duties for the first year: "We
have had every ordinance of our Church performed in our chapel." The
Bishop had held his first ordination on March 17, had baptized a Jew on
Whitsun Day, and confirmed eight Hebrew Christians; married two
converts; finishing up with the ordination of a Hebrew Christian
missionary. The upper room proved all too small, and the building of the
London Society's permanent church, which was to serve the joint purposes
of a Cathedral, a chapel for British residence, and a mission centre,
was proceeded with, although Alexander did not live to see its
consecration. His episcopate was destined to be a very brief one, but
its three years may well be described as "years of plenty." His letters
shew how ardently he threw himself into his work, and how very near his
heart it was. Outlying districts of his extensive diocese were visited;
and the outlook was bright and promising.
A great blow fell upon the work in the autumn of 1845, in his sudden
death, on Nov. 26, after the short episcopate of four years. The sad
event occurred in the desert at Ras-el-Wady, on his way to visit Egypt,
which formed a part of the diocese of Jerusalem. A pathetic interest
attaches to the Bishop's last annual letter, written before he started
for Cairo, in which, speaking of his arrangements, he alluded to the
"uncertainty of everything."
As to the past he spoke with conscious satisfaction of the Divine
blessing resting upon the work of Jewish converts baptized and
confirmed, and amicable intercourse maintained with Jewish residents and
strangers in Jerusalem, of opportunities at Jaffa, of his visit to
Damascus, and of friendly relations maintained with the different
churches. He thus concluded: "On the whole we have great reason to thank
God and take courage, and to call upon our friends to join with us in
prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, on the memorable day, January
21, when we made our first entry into the Holy City. A day which is much
to be remembered, even when the results, which have already followed in
this short period, be alone taken into consideration; but a day which we
trust will yet prove one of the most remarkable in the history of the
Church, when the Lord 'shall build up Zion, and appear in His glory,'
and when all, who now mourn for her, seeing her desolate and trodden
down, shall rejoice for joy with her; and when God's people shall be
delighted with the abundance of her glory."
Mrs. Alexander thus described the Bishop's last days in the desert at
Belveis, Nov. 3, 1845: "On setting out through the desert, each day my
beloved husband and myself rode our own horses; we generally were in
advance of the caravan, and we used regularly to chant some of our
Hebrew chants, and sang the following hymns: 'Children of the Heavenly
King;' 'Long has the Harp of Judah hung;' Psalm cxi.; 'Glorious things
of thee are spoken;' all out of our own hymn-book; and never did his
warm and tender heart overflow so fully, as when he spoke of Israel's
future restoration. When I spoke to him about his duties in England, he
answered, 'I hope, if invited, to preach my first sermon in England at
the Episcopal Jews' Chapel;' and on my asking what subject he would
take, he replied, 'I shall resume the subject I adopted when I last left
that dear congregation;' namely, that none of these trials had moved
him. (Acts xx. 24-28.)"
His chaplain, the Rev. W. D. Veitch, reporting the death, said: "It was
truly a heart-rending scene. In a tent, in the wild sandy desert, no
medical help at hand, to see the widowed wife and fatherless daughter
bending over the lowly pallet, on which were stretched the lifeless
remains."
"The immediate cause of death," wrote Mrs. Leider, who formed one of the
party, "was rupture of one of the largest bloodvessels near the heart;
but the whole of the lungs, liver, and heart, were found in an
exceedingly diseased state, and had been so for a length of time; the
accelerating cause, doubtless, was great and continued anxiety--such as
the Bishopric of Jerusalem and its cares can best account for. I heard
it said on this occasion that had his lordship not come into the East,
he might possibly have lived to a good old age; but the mitre of
Jerusalem, like the wreath of our blessed Lord, has been to him a crown
of thorns."
The body was taken first to Cairo, where Mr. Veitch preached the funeral
sermon from the most appropriate text that could have been chosen--"So
Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab" (Deut.
xxxiv. 5).
On December 6, a mournful caravan set out from Cairo with the Bishop's
remains, recalling the sad procession which returned to the Promised
Land with the bones of Joseph. The cortège arrived at Jerusalem on the
20th of the same month, at seven o'clock in the evening, and proceeded
at once to the English cemetery, where, by torchlight, the remains of
the beloved and venerated prelate were deposited in their last resting
place, the Rev. J. Nicolayson reading the service. Funeral sermons were
preached by him in Jerusalem the next day, and in the Episcopal Jews'
Chapel, London, on December 28, by the Rev. J. B. Cartwright.
A letter of condolence to Mrs. Alexander, signed by thirty-one Jewish
converts at Jerusalem, was the most eloquent testimony to the blessing
which had followed the successful labours of the Bishop. The signatories
said: "Next to yourself and your dear family, we consider ourselves the
chief mourners; for we feel both collectively and individually that we
have lost not only a true Father in Christ, but also a loving brother
and a most kind friend. The suavity and benignity of his manner, which
so greatly endeared him to all, and which gained him the highest and
most entire filial confidence of every one of us, tend much to increase
the keen sense we feel of our loss. The affectionate love he bore to
Israel, which peculiarly characterised him, could not fail to render him
beloved by every one who had the privilege of being acquainted with him:
while his exalted piety, and most exemplary life and conversation,
inspired the highest reverential esteem. He was a burning and a shining
light; and when he was raised to the highest dignity in the Church, he
conferred the most conspicuous honour on our whole nation, but
especially on the little band of Jewish believers. With him captive
Judah's brightest earthly star has set, and the top stone has been taken
away from the rising Hebrew Church."
We do not think that any more expressive words of the sterling quality
of the Bishop's character could have been penned than these. And yet we
should like to supplement them.
Many friends testified their love and esteem for the Bishop by raising a
most gratifying testimonial to his memory, amounting to over £3,000,
which was handed to his widow and family. It is interesting to glance at
the list of contributors after this lapse of time, for it reveals the
fact that the Bishop was highly esteemed by rich and poor alike. Amongst
the former we notice the names of the Dowager Queen Adelaide, the then
Archbishops of Canterbury and Armagh, and the Bishops of London,
Winchester, Ripon, Lichfield, Lincoln, Peterborough, Llandaff, Sodor and
Man, and Madras. The Primate of All England spoke of Alexander having
conducted the affairs of his Church with so much discretion and
prudence, as to give no cause of complaint to the heads of other
communions residing in the same city, and to win their respect and
esteem by his piety and beneficence, and by his persevering yet
temperate zeal in prosecuting the objects of his mission.
He lived and worked in constant dependence upon the Holy Spirit whose
power he conspicuously honoured. It was his invariable practice to
impress upon those whom he was about to teach the absolute impossibility
of their understanding divine things without His aid. This was as
noticeable in his earlier years as missionary, as in his later ones as
bishop. His conciliatory manner in dealing with Jews, his transparent
love for his brethren, his calmness amidst opposition, did much to
disarm the excited assembly at the Conferences in Aldermanbury, and the
violent attitude of the mob when he revisited his Jewish relatives at
Schönlanke. He was bold and fearless in the delivery of his message,
faithful in everything, anxious above all things to bear testimony to
the name and glory of his Master, and to make full proof of his
ministry, whether as missionary or bishop.
His friends, and those who worked under him at Jerusalem, loved him for
his kind nature--for he had an ear, heart, and purse open to all--and
for his simple-hearted piety. He was an Israelite indeed in whom there
was no guile. He had a ripeness of Christian experience, and unaffected
earnestness of purpose. His was a strikingly interesting personality,
rendered doubly so in that he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and in his
episcopal dignity a link with the primitive Hebrew Christian Church in
the Mother City of Christendom.
The Bishop published: "The Hope of Israel," 1831; The "Glory of Mount
Zion," 1839; "The Flower that Fadeth," "Memoir of Sarah Alexander,"
1841.
ALEXANDERSON, Daniel, was baptized in Holland in 1621. He published in
the Syriac (rabbinic) language a confession of faith, to which he
appended an epistle to the dispersed Jews, asking them to accept Jesus
as their Saviour. This was translated into Dutch, German, and French by
Petrus Jacobi, (Amsterdam, 1642).
ALMAN, Rev. S., a minister of the Gospel in New York.
ALTHAUSEN, Dr., son of a well-known rabbi in Russia. After studying
medicine at Lemberg he was appointed as military doctor in Russia. At
the age of 35 he was converted and baptized by Pastor Landesen, in
Charkow, in 1855, and his wife and children followed his example a year
or two afterwards. He then devoted himself to missionary work in St.
Petersburg and in other cities, and did good work, notably in spreading
the New Testament which was plentifully supplied to him by the late Rev.
John Wilkinson, of the Mildmay Mission.
ALTMANN, J., a convert of the L.J.S., baptized by the Rev. F. G.
Kleinhenn, at Bucharest, now labouring for many years as an evangelist
in Transsylvania, Hungary.
ALTSCHILLER, L., son of the Rabbi of Morcompol, had received the tract
"Life of Augusti," which made a great impression upon him. He was
instructed by Goldinger of the L.J.S., and was baptized in Poland in
1848.
AMSDEN, of Vermont, a convert and missionary to the Jews in the United
States about 1850.
ANGEL, Rev. B., convert and missionary to the Jews in New York.
ANTON, Carl (Moses Gershon Cohen), a descendant of Bartenora Hayim
Vital, born in Mitau (Curland), in 1722, of a family called "the Golden
Chains." After studying for seven years at Prague, under Jonathan
Eibenschütz, he travelled in the East and became very ill at
Constantinople. It was there when reading Dan. ix. that he began to
think seriously as to the state of his soul. On his return to Germany he
was baptized at Wolfenbuttel by Pastor Meyers in 1748. The Duke of
Brunswick appointed him Professor of Hebrew at Helmstadt. He wrote a
Latin tract, "The Wandering Jew," entitled "Commentatio Historica de
Judæo Immortali in qua haec Fabula examinatur et confutatur," Helmstadt,
1756; translated Abraham Jaegel's Catechism, "Lekah Tob" (Good
Instruction), Brunswick, 1756; and gave a description of a rare copy of
"Shulhan Aruk Eben haezer," to be found in manuscript in the City
Library, Hamburg. He also wrote "Fabulae Antiquitatum Ebraicum Veterum,"